Scott Johnson

Song of a Wayfarer

Because Americans rarely travel to Cuba, Scott Johnson had to go. He and his friend Steve Selwood spent five days in Havana in 1998, listening to music in one bar after another. Because he graduated with a minor in Jewish Studies from Trinity College in Hartford, he had to explore Egypt. There, Scott and his friends made their way into a pyramid off-limits to tourists.

And before a second jet crashed into 2 World Trade Center, where Mr. Johnson worked as an analyst for Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, he was making plans to visit South America next summer to explore a culture that fascinated him.

Mr. Johnson, 26, played golf with his father in Montclair, N.J., where he grew up, and cheered the Yankees from his couch. He was cherished for his quiet, firm sense of what was important: family, friends, knowledge and adventure.

For Eric Kusseluk, Mr. Johnson was the best friend who took calls at 3 a.m. when Mr. Kusseluk's mother was dying of cancer. For Mr. Johnson's father, Tom, he was the child devoid of any meanness. For friends who loved music as he did, he was a generous investor in a new live-music club in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The fire of his passions changed you, people said. His brother, Tom, is still reading the book he recommended a few months ago: a biography of Che Guevara. And Mr. Selwood is still hoping to take that trip to South America someday.